


[META] What's In Good Omens: Lockdown

by mecurtin, Readertee



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Analysis, Aziraphale's Bookshop (Good Omens), Episode: Good Omens: Lockdown, M/M, Meta, Screencaps
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:15:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24121936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mecurtin/pseuds/mecurtin, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Readertee/pseuds/Readertee
Summary: I’m making a detailed, shot-by-shot and item-by-item analysis of the visual information in Good Omens: Lockdown. It is extremely visually dense, and I think it’s telling a story—I just don’t know yet what story that is.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 45
Kudos: 44





	1. Introduction

For Good Omens the TV series, Neil Gaiman and Douglas Mackinnon assured us that “everything is intentional” _[Can someone point me to where someone first noticed that the angle of Aziraphale’s wing over Crowley in Eden is the same as the angle of the piano lid at the Ritz, and Neil or Doug said “Yes, we meant that”?]_ , and that’s been borne out by our experience. Everyone involved in Good Omens put it together with a fannish level of love and attention to detail, and so our reciprocal love and attention isn’t “making too much” of it.

Good Omens: Lockdown was made under severe constraints, so all the visual information we get are shots of props. I started to look at screencaps at first just to make a list of what Aziraphale has been reading. 

The more I’ve done this, the more I become convinced that we've been looking at it **all wrong** , as though the dialogue tells the story and the props are just decoration. I think the props tell a story that’s different (or at least much more complex) than the story in the dialogue, though I haven't yet figured out what story they’re telling. I don't know if Neil et al. 

a) are giving us a set of significant items/implied events, hoping to see what we make of it

b) are giving us, the fans, clues to let us piece together a particular full story they have in mind, as a wonderful Easter Egg

c) are setting up Season 2

GO:L is an unusual video text, because it's a set of still life arrangements in distinct video clips. I count 29 clips, so I’m first going to post a timeline in 3 chapters, the first two covering 9 clips each, the last having 11 (there are a _lot_ of desserts). I’ve given each clip a name (so we can more easily tell them apart) and included a screencap. Clicking the image will take you to my original 3840x2160 screencap on imgur. I then list all the items I see in each picture, by type, including items I haven’t identified. I’ll probably go back later and put in the dialogue that goes with each clip.

After I’ve put up the timeline, I’ll put up chapters for different kinds of items: two for books, one or more for other objects, one for food, and one for unidentified items. And then I’ll probably put up one (or more) chapters discussing ideas (and stories!) inspired by what we’ve found.

Please, comment with any specifics you see, _especially_ if you think I’ve mis-identified something. I’m a scientist, and “error and trial” is how we work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to [naye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/naye/pseuds/naye), who patiently taught me how to put images up on imgur and link to them!


	2. Timeline: Clips 01-09

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clips 01-09, covering 0:06 through 1:33

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Front Chesterton Binge" and "Back Chesterton Binge" are what I call two piles of books by and about G. K. Chesterton from Clip 12, **Binge** , to be see in Chapter 3.
> 
> eta: Edited because when I was making a list of "unknown" books, I discovered that what I had been calling "unknown1" is Ellen Terry's Memoirs.

**01\. Sushi**  
[ ](https://imgur.com/Xw8c12i)  
a. partially eaten plate of sushi with chopsticks  
b. Japanese plate  
c. books: Pilgrim’s Progress; Ellen Terry's Memoirs; Orthodoxy (open); edge of Front Chesterton Binge  
d. Aziraphale portrait  
e. Witchfinder map

 **02\. Crowley**  
[ ](https://imgur.com/DwwSQIC)  
a. Crowley portrait  
b. magnifying glass

 **03\. Cup**  
[ ](https://imgur.com/njltUFo)  
a. Aziraphale’s angel cup  
b. books: Orthodoxy; others v. blurry  
c. pastry fork  
d. flickering candlelight  
At end of clip a white person’s hand comes in from the right and picks up the cup

 **04\. Courvoisier**  
[ ](https://imgur.com/xdk2oGQ)  
a. bottle of Courvoisier VSOP brandy, about ¼ full  
b. edges of 2 books from Back Chesterton Binge: Barker biography, one other  
c. flickering candlelight

 **05\. Dance with the Devil**  
  
a. picture of Witches and Demons Dancing in brass frame  
b. book stack: The Iliad; unknown1; Orthodoxy; Forbidden Rites; Belloc poems; The Club of Queer Trades; Old and New London  
c. flickering candlelight

 **06\. Butterfly**  
[ ](https://imgur.com/UevCXT7)  
a. closeup of steampunk butterfly from Pratchett’s Solstice Award  
b. flickering candlelight

 **07\. Orthodoxy**  
[ ](https://imgur.com/UKDLseV)  
a. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy, open to the chapter “The Ethics of Elfland”

 **08\. Magnifying**  
[ ](https://imgur.com/pHP3n6w)  
a. magnifying glass  
b. Oxfordshire map

 **09\. Letter**  
[ ](https://imgur.com/vekMvya)  
a. “Anthony J. Crowley Esq” b. green sealing wax, still glowing  
c. seal stamp


	3. Timeline: Clips 10-18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clips 10-18, covering 1:33 through 2:25.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updated: because I didn't post the whole thing at first, and because whatsis1 was IDed as a pen made from Crowley's feather.

  1. **Astrolabe**  
  

    1. astrolabe
    2. blurry books, unknown1 most visibly
    3. flickering candlelight
  2. **Brandy**  
[ ](https://imgur.com/C3eXszP)  

    1. glass of brandy
    2. candle
    3. *very* blurry books
    4. flickering candlelight
  3. **Binge**  
[ ](https://imgur.com/wPmbA94)  

    1. 4 groups of books: 
      1. Front Chesterton Binge (incl unknown5 pamplet)
      2. Back Chesterton Binge
      3. pile with: Pilgrim’s Progress, Ellen Terry’s Memoirs, unknown1, Homer
      4. upright: Lore of the Land, unknownseries1, unknown2
    2. Courvoisier bottle
    3. Pratchett’s Solstice Award
    4. plate of sushi
    5. astrolabe
    6. pen made from Crowley’s feather
    7. Aziraphale portrait
    8. Witchfinder map
(no candle flicker)
  4. **Magic**  
[](https://imgur.com/c5aRdHM)   

    1. books: Magic: an Occult Primer; Satanism and Witchcraft
    2. candle
    3. flickering candlelight
  5. **Tower of tasty**  
[](https://imgur.com/duDjtWi)
    1. Cake and other baked goods
    2. bee-patterned paper
  

  6. **Cakes and books**  
[](https://imgur.com/XAezLxh)  
In focus: 
    1. sliced angel’s food cake
    2. pastry fork, plate
    3. angel cup
    4. hotel desk bell
    5. books: one with green cover under bell; unknown3 under cake, other unknowns under cake
  
Out of focus near: 
    1. plate with various baked goods
    2. pastry fork
    3. at least one book
  
Out of focus far: 
    1. two different plates of baked goods
    2. astrolabe
    3. Pratchett’s Solstice Award
    4. pen made from Crowley's feather
    5. books:
      1. pile under Solstice Award: Homer, Pilgrim’s Progress, unknowns
      2. upright under pink baked goods: unknownseries1, Encyclopedia of Magic & Superstition
      3. under baked goods on right: Ocean at the End of the Lane, unknown4
      4. Magic: an Occult Primer; possibly others
  7. **Scones**  
[](https://imgur.com/UTRR4m0)  

    1. scones with jam & clotted cream
    2. plate
  

  8. **Cookbook**  
[](https://imgur.com/1iiOk36)  

    1. open copy of Delia Smith’s Complete Illustrated Cookery Course, with notes stuck between some pages
    2. magnifying glass
    3. open book, probably Pilgrim’s Progress
  9. **Peckish**  
[](https://imgur.com/ETmlCxD)  

    1. Japanese plate(s?) with crumbs
    2. two pastry forks
    3. crumpled bee paper
    4. whatsis2 (baked goods?)




	4. Timeline: Clips 19-29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clips 19 to 29, covering 2:26 to 3:14.

  1. **Bundt cake**  
[](https://imgur.com/Sw0MeV8)
    1. cake
  2. **Sponge cake**  
[](https://imgur.com/YMNRoQG)
    1. cake
    2. Japanese plate
    3. pastry fork
  3. **Angel’s food cake**  
[](https://imgur.com/FDXZgKg)
    1. cake
    2. Japanese plate
    3. pastry fork
    4. bee paper
  4. **Sourdough**  
[](https://imgur.com/LV2zEH7)
    1. breads
    2. bee paper
  5. **Black Forest**  
[](https://imgur.com/41h2EA7)
    1. cake
  6. **Red Velvet**  
[](https://imgur.com/HCXNjqR)
    1. cake
    2. Japanese plate
    3. The Ocean at the End of the Lane
  7. **Tadfield**  
[](https://imgur.com/aLY3iZu)
    1. baked goods
    2. Japanese plate
    3. Oxfordshire map
    4. astrolabe
    5. unknown5
  8. **Oxfordshire**  
[](https://imgur.com/YK3IKep)
    1. Oxfordshire map
    2. open copy of Pilgrim’s Progress
    3. open unknown6
    4. astrolabe
  9. **Flame**  
[](https://imgur.com/jb0q7La)
    1. candle flame
  10. **Half-hidden Crowley**  
[](https://imgur.com/VwpBXPX)
    1. baked goods
    2. Japanese plate
    3. pastry fork
    4. Crowley portrait
    5. magnifying glass
    6. Oxfordshire map
    7. hotel desk bell
    8. unknown5
  11. **Half-hidden Aziraphale**  
[](https://imgur.com/fakP5JK)
    1. Aziraphale portrait
    2. witchfinder map




	5. Unknown books

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All the books or book-like objects that are still unidentified.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [melannen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/melannen) identified Unknown3 as [The Dumpy Pocket Book of Nature](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17336667-the-dumpy-pocket-book-of-nature) (1957).

Dedicated sleuthing has left only the following unidentified books, of those visible enough that someone might, in theory, be able to ID them. This doesn't include all the unidentified books in the Chesterton Binge stacks, where we already know they're by or about Chesterton.

I haven't looked at the food in detail because I'm not British and I don't watch Great British Bake-Off. I'd love to have a co-author who recognizes everything or almost everything and can discuss its significance.

I _think_ all the non-food, non-book items have been identified.

The numbers in parentheses are those of the clips in which the items appear.

 **1\. Unknown1** (05, 10, 12)  
In Clip05:  
[](https://imgur.com/XjhXnFW)

In Clip10 (note paper bookmark):  
[](https://imgur.com/FY6i9XG)

In Clip12:  
[](https://imgur.com/04hhPvy)

From 19th C or earlier, poor condition. Binding suggests a series. Title/author mostly rubbed out (deliberately?), except for a final  
......AL  
.......S  
My brain says [Juvenal Satires](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satires_\(Juvenal\)), but for no particularly good reason.

 **2\. Unknown2** (12)  
[](https://imgur.com/ZVpO7og)

Perfect-bound volume, taped spine -- so, post-WWII, probably post-1970, as nothing appears to have yellowed. Cover is B&W ink or watercolor painting, vaguely Japanese or Chinese in style.

 ~~ **3\. Unknown3** (15)  
~~ [melannen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/melannen) identified this as [The Dumpy Pocket Book of Nature](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17336667-the-dumpy-pocket-book-of-nature) (1957). More in the Bibliography II chapter. 

**4\. Unknown4** (15)  
[](https://imgur.com/D14IB3q)

Large hardcover, probably not novel (unless it was a Special Edition). Late 20th c. Dark, thick spine, pinkish cover with silvery lettering. Last word may be “Fairies” – final S, in any event. It looks vaguely familiar to me…

 **5\. Unknown5** (12, 25)  
In Clip12:  
[](https://imgur.com/CpR37Wa)

In Clip25:  
[](https://imgur.com/dVeZ9SI)

Pamphlet. Mid-20th C. Print on cover is both black and red. Handwriting on cover (Aziraphale’s?), long sentence beginning “Praise …”

 **Unknownseries1** (12, 15): Book series of at least 7 volumes.  
In Clip12:  
[](https://imgur.com/2g2UQRO)

In Clip15:  
[](https://imgur.com/KmHrIC9)

The clearest look at the titles is in Clip12. To me it looks like:  
............A  
.........CA  
............N  
\----------

A to  
....O

The second volume looks as though it ends in  
..MA

It sure looks to me as though it could be:  
ENCYCLOPEDIA  
BRITTANICA  
.... EDITION

\-- but the layout of the spine doesn't correspond to any Brittanica edition, ever. If it _is_ Brittanica, it's a copy that was re-bound at some point, probably in the mid- to late-20th C, judging by the style.

There's a book lying down in Clip15:  
[](https://imgur.com/ALrV22h)

which might be another volume in this series. 

I've looked at pictures of the spines of every Brittanica edition I can find, and none of them have volume breaks that seem to me to match what we see here. 

9th edition: vol 1 A-ANA, vol 2 ANA-ATH

11th vol 1 A-AND, vol 2 AND-AUS

13th: vols 1&2 A to AUSTR

I throw up my hands, I'm stumped.


	6. Bibliography I: Chesterton

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All the books by or about Chesterton, plus unidentified books that are probably Chestertonian.

A high proportion of the books in Lockdown are by or about G. K. Chesterton. _Orthodoxy_ is most obvious, but the two stacks on the left in Clip12 show clearly that Aziraphale has been on a Chesterton binge (which is why I named Clip12 "Binge"). 

In cases where it's not obvious, I've added a note at the end about how I identified the work.

* * *

## 

Works by Chesterton

in alphabetical order by title (not counting The or A). Numbers in parentheses are the clips where they can be seen. 12F = Front Stack of Chesterton Binge, 12B = Back Stack of Chesterton Binge

* * *

####  [Autobiography](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/174851.The_Autobiography_of_G_K_Chesterton) (12F #9) 

[ ](https://imgur.com/iILdVBV)

Hutchinson (1936)

The top Goodreads review quotes Chesterton's view of the meaning of life:

> The aim of life is appreciation; there is no sense in not appreciating things; and there is no sense in having more of them if you have less appreciation of them. ... To keep the capacity of really liking what he likes; that is the practical problem which the philosopher has to solve.

That's our angel.

This is one of the last Chesterton books I identified. I honestly don't remember how I did it, exactly: the only info is part of the publisher's name, "..HINSON". I think I looked through lists of British publishing imprints of the 30s, searching for that letter combination. I found "Hutchinson", then put Hutchinson+Chesterton into abebooks.com, and there it was.

* * *

####  [The Ball and the Cross](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/259052.The_Ball_and_the_Cross) (12B #4)

[](https://imgur.com/z24ifDe)  
Darwen Finlayson reprint edition (1963); first published as a serial, 1905-06, then as a book in 1909 (or maybe 1910) by Wells Gardner, Darton and Co.

[Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ball_and_the_Cross)  
[Project Gutenberg full text](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5265)

Per Wikipedia:

> The novel's beginning involves debates about rationalism and religion between a Professor Lucifer and a monk named Michael. ... Much of the rest of the book concerns the dueling, figurative and somewhat more literal, of a Jacobite Catholic named MacIan and an atheist Socialist named Turnbull. ... both duelists are ready to fight for and die for their antagonistic opinions and, in doing so, develop a certain partnership that evolves into a friendship. The real antagonist is the world outside ...

I started reading at the beginning, but found "Lucifer" and "Michael" too turgid to force my brain to keep going. I can definitely see, though, that the "enemies to partners to friends" dynamic of MacIan and Turnbull might have a certain interest for Aziraphale. If you've read it, please tell me more in the Comments.

IDing this book was quite simple: I realized it's part of the Darwen Finlayson series, then pulled up Chestertons published by DW on abebooks and looked at the covers.

* * *

####  [The Club of Queer Trades](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/561182.The_Club_of_Queer_Trades) (Clip 05 #6)

[ ](https://imgur.com/0PxhvHd)

Penguin edition (1946). Originally published as a serial, 1903-04, then as a book in 1905 by George Bell and Sons, "with illustrations by the author."

[Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Club_of_Queer_Trades)  
Project Gutenberg full text.

Collection of 6 early stories about former Judge Basil Grant having odd encounters with members of the Club of Queer Trades--each of whom gets his living from a trade no-one else practices. Judge Grant's "rationalist" younger brother Russell is the foil. Presumably Chesterton didn't mean "Queer" to have a double meaning, but that's no reason to stop us.

Neil Gaiman has said that [he's a big fan of this book](https://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/post/16552909437/i-love-tolkein-and-lewis-but-ive-never-heard-of), along with _The Man Who Was Thursday._

__

__

I'd never read these before, and I tried to read them from Aziraphale's POV. Part of what attracts him has got to be the repeated refrain of "it seems as though X must be evil, but really he's doing something else" -- and something else often involves Crowley-like mischief, shenanigans, or dress-up. But the final story is, to a modern reader, horrific. 

In "The Eccentric Seclusion of the Old Lady" Russell and a friend stumble across the area (below street-level space) of an upper-class house with a closed door behind which they hear:

> a continuous and moaning sound which took the form of the words: “When shall I get out? When shall I get out? Will they ever let me out?” or words to that effect. 

The voice sounds like an elderly woman.

Deeply upset, they bring Judge Grant to the house to investigate. He meets the young men living there, who have Oxford accents, and dismisses Russell's concerns because "this kind of good man doesn't commit that kind of crime." I'm having a queasy feeling in my stomach, because of course they do, they just don't think of it as crime, they do it "for her own good." Does Chesterton not know that?

Anyway, Russell doesn't let Basil walk away, they go back into the house, have a ruckus, tie up the men, and then go downstairs. They find the old woman sitting in a dark room in the basement, mumbling and moaning. But when they turn on the light she refuses to come out and only asks them to untie her captors.

Then Basil walks in, and the lady curtseys to him.

> “So I hear,” he said, in a kindly yet somehow formal voice, “I hear, madam, that my friends have been trying to rescue you. But without success.”
> 
> “No one, naturally, knows my faults better than you,” answered the lady with a high colour. “But you have not found me guilty of treachery.”
> 
> “I willingly attest it, madam,” replied Basil, in the same level tones, “and the fact is that I am so much gratified with your exhibition of loyalty that I permit myself the pleasure of exercising some very large discretionary powers. You would not leave this room at the request of these gentlemen. But you know that you can safely leave it at mine.”
> 
> The captive made another reverence. “I have never complained of your injustice,” she said. “I need scarcely say what I think of your generosity.”

She walks out and the episode ends without explanation.

Months later, Russell learns that Basil quit his position as an official Judge because

> Daily there passed before me taut and passionate problems, the stringency of which I had to pretend to relieve by silly imprisonments or silly damages, while I knew all the time, by the light of my living common sense, that they would have been far better relieved by a kiss or a thrashing, or a few words of explanation, or a duel, or a tour in the West Highlands.

He then became an unofficial or moral Judge

> My criminals were tried for the faults which really make social life impossible. They were tried before me for selfishness, or for an impossible vanity, or for scandalmongering, or for stinginess to guests or dependents.  
>  ... [For example,] A maiden lady in South Kensington whom I had condemned to solitary confinement for being the means of breaking off an engagement through backbiting

In other words, Judge Basil--who prefigures Sunday (God) in _The Man Who Was Thursday_ \--has someone tortured for...spreading rumors that "make" a couple break up? And this is "common sense"?

I was nauseated by this story, not least because there have been a number of really good [Good Omens fics](https://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=kudos_count&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=Solitary+Confinement&work_search%5Bexcluded_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bcrossover%5D=&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_from%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_to%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_from%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_to%5D=&work_search%5Bquery%5D=&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=&commit=Sort+and+Filter&tag_id=Good+Omens+%28TV%29) in which Heaven puts Aziraphale into solitary confinement "for his own good".

There's definitely a lot of room for ways Aziraphale might read this book. It may or may not be significant that this particular volume of Chesterton stories is a beat-up Penguin paperback, while the other story collections are mostly the hardcover Darwen Finlayson editions. This book is also in a different stack from most of the other Chestertons, it's along with books that move around between clips and so are presumably what Aziraphale is working with right now.

* * *

####  [Four Faultless Felons](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/184463.Four_Faultless_Felons) (12F #1) 

[ ](https://imgur.com/TOPSYz5)

Delta Books edition (full cover seen on [this Amazon page](https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0852080247/ref=nosim/speculativefic05)). 1963? Originally published by Cassell & Co., London, 1930. 

This is a collection of four stories: The Moderate Murderer ; The Honest Quack; The Ecstatic Thief; The Loyal Traitor. The eponymous felons have formed a kind of club, because "We have all had occasion .. to look rather worse than we were." They say they're detectives, but "We do not hunt for crimes but for concealed virtues." They have all done things that appear to be crimes, but are really efforts to protect people and push them toward good.

Aziraphale's favorite story here would be "The Honest Quack." The "quack" is a Dr. Judson, who (spoiler warning) arbitrarily commits the poet Mr Windrush to the insane asylum--to prevent him from being charged with the murder. It turns out that the large tree in the center of Windrush's garden, a tree he circles every day, has a skeleton wedged inside it. Of course Windrush is innocent, and when Judson's care for him is revealed Windrush's lovely daughter Enid realizes that he's really a good guy after all. (Almost all the Chesterton stories I've been reading have a romantic subplot.)

The last chapter about the Quack is "The Epilogue of the Garden". Windrush, speaking to Judson, says

> "You scientific men are very superior, of course, and there is nothing legendary about you. You do not believe in the Garden of Eden. You do not believe in Adam and Eve. Above all, you do not believe in the Forbidden Tree."
> 
> ...  
>  "But I say to you, always have in your garden a Forbidden Tree. Always have in your life something that you may not touch. That is the secret of being young and happy for ever. There was never a story so true as that story you call a fable. But you will evolve and explore and eat of the tree of knowledge, and what comes of it?"

Later, Judson and Enid talk in the garden:

> "In one respect your father underrates my orthodoxy."
> 
> Her own smile grew a little graver as she asked him why he said so.
> 
> "Because I do believe in Adam and Eve," answered the man of science, and he suddenly seized both her hands.
> 
> She left them where they were and continued to gaze at him with an utter stillness and steadiness. Only her eyes had altered.
> 
> "I believe in Adam," she said, "though I was once quite firmly convinced that he was the Serpent."
> 
> "I never thought you were the Serpent," he answered in the same new tone of musing, that was almost mystical, "but I thought you were the Angel of the Flaming Sword."
> 
> "I have thrown away the sword," said Enid Windrush.
> 
> "And left only the angel," he answered, and she rejoined: "Left only the woman."
> 
> ...And it seemed to both of them that something had broken or been loosened, a last bond with chaos and the night, a last strand of the net of some resisting Nothing that obstructs creation; and God had made a new garden and they stood alive on the first foundations of the world.

No wonder this book is at the top of the front Chesterton stack.

The other story Aziraphale loves is "The Ecstatic Thief". The thief is Alan Nadoway, who steals (or looks like he's stealing) to (spoilers) attempt to counterbalance the many wrongs his father committed in becoming a wealthy, respected businessman--wrongs of the sort that are called "just doing business", but which impoverish communities and break workers. He says

> Somebody must be terribly good, to balance what was so bad. Somebody must be needlessly good, to weigh down the scales of that judgement. He was cruel and got credit for it. Somebody else must be kind and get no credit for it.

Alan's love interest, Millicent, when she starts to understand what he's been doing, says:

> "Throught the worst one could imagine comes the best one could not imagine. ...
> 
> You go through the worst to the best, as you go through the west to the east," she said, "and there really is a place, at the back of the world, where the east and west are one. Can't you feel there is something so frightfully and frantically good that it must seem bad?"

I note that when Millicent first encounters Alan, "he remained seated with a somewhat ostentatious languor" -- which should remind you (and Aziraphale) of someone.

Be warned if you read it: the last story, "The Loyal Traitor", includes Jewish characters. There are people who devote a lot of energy to arguing that Chesterton wasn't antisemitic, but they're wrong. You will cringe. He wasn't _extremely_ antisemitic by the standards of 1930, but it's sure there.

I know it took me the very dickens of a time to determine what book this was, but I can't remember what particular combination of search terms and site led me to it--this particular edition, with this cover, is *not* common.

* * *

####  [Manalive](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/899146.Manalive) (12F #6)

[ ](https://imgur.com/iucObAn)

Penguin edition, unknown year. First edition was published by John Lane in 1912.

[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manalive)  
[Project Gutenberg text](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1718).

About a "holy fool", Innocent Smith, who appears to do evil but, to quote Wikipedia:

> In every case, the defendant is revealed to be, as his first name states, innocent. He fires bullets near people to make them value life; the house he breaks into is his own; he travels around the world only to return with renewed appreciation for his house and family; and the women he absconded with are actually his wife Mary, posing as a spinster under different aliases so they may repeatedly re-enact their courtship.

I read it but found it tedious. With bonus anti-Semitism!

* * *

####  [A Motley Wisdom: The Best of G. K. Chesterton](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7644522-a-motley-wisdom). Chosen and Introduced by Nigel Forde (12B #7) 

[ ](https://imgur.com/dXNfwS5)

Hodder & Stoughton (1995).  
A collection of stories, essays, poetry, and excerpts from longer works.  
[The Chesterton Review](https://www.pdcnet.org/chesterton/content/chesterton_1995_0021_0004_0525_0526) thought it very good, with helpful commentary & introductions. I haven't found a table of contents.

I stared at this for a long time without getting anywhere, but then I googled "Chesterton + Nigel" and found it.

* * *

####  [Orthodoxy](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/87665.Orthodoxy) (03, 05 #3, 07) 

[ ](https://imgur.com/EKoOy6l)  
[ ](https://imgur.com/kjF4EJw)

Bodley Head (1957 edition, I think). Originally published by Bodley Head in 1908.

[Wikipedia entry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodoxy_\(book\))  
[Project Gutenberg full text](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/130)

Obviously _Orthodoxy_ is the most important Chesterton work Aziraphale is using. It's visible in multiple clips (and even moves around: it's closed in the middle of a stack of books in Clip05, though it's open in Clip03), and Clip07 focuses on part of the text.

The text we see in Clip07 is from [Chapter 4, The Ethics of Elfland](http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/books/orthodoxy/ch4.html). 

[](https://imgur.com/UKDLseV><img%20src=)

The visible paragraphs are, on the left-hand page:

> have dropped it in the sea. It is a good exercise, in empty or ugly hours of the day, to look at anything, the coal-scuttle or the book-case, and think how happy one could be to have brought it out of the sinking ship on to the solitary island. But it is a better exercise still to remember how all things have had this hair-breadth escape: everything has been saved from a wreck. Every man has had one horrible adventure: as a hidden untimely birth he had not been, as infants that never see the light. 

and on the right:

> economical about the stars as if they were sapphires (they are called so in Milton's Eden): I hoarded the hills. For the universe is a single jewel, and while it is a natural cant to talk of a jewel as peerless and priceless, of this jewel it is literally true. This cosmos is indeed without peer and without price: for there cannot be another one.
> 
> Thus ends, in unavoidable inadequacy, the attempt to utter the unutterable things.

_"everything has been saved from a wreck"_. Chesterton is writing about his pre-conversion spiritual journey, and how he identified with Robinson Crusoe, to whom every item saved from the ship was precious, no matter how mundane it seemed.

But I think this is the line that brought Aziraphale to re-read this book, because he knows that in fact the whole Earth has just been saved from disaster, rescued by a chance beyond hope. The Earth now seems to him exactly like a jewel beyond price or peer, to be cherished and guarded.

I have not read the whole book yet; if you have, and think there's another part that's especially relevant to Aziraphale, please leave a comment.

* * *

####  [The Poet and the Lunatics](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1011947.The_Poet_and_the_Lunatics) (12B #3) 

[ ](https://imgur.com/CvUH91c)

Darwen Finlayson reprint edition (1963). Originally published 1929.  
[Full text](http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/books/Poet_and_Lunatics.html)

Stories about Gabriel Gale, the Poet and painter, whose empathy allows him to solve or prevent crimes by "lunatics". I read them, but they made no impression on me whatever--probably because the picture of mental illness Chesterton presents is so artificial. 

I looked through images of all the Darwen Finlayson Chestertons I could find until I found one showing this image on the spine.

* * *

####  [Chesterton's Stories Essays and Poems](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/184532.Stories_Essays_and_Poems) (12F #5)

[](https://imgur.com/Q6WAoan><img%20src=)  
Everyman's Library edition. J. M. Dent & Sons, first published 1935. 

[ The edition at archive.org](https://archive.org/details/storiesessayspoe0000ches_w7j8) is a 1965 printing. Aziraphale's copy is probably from the 40s or 50s, so I assume it has the same table of contents:

[ ](https://imgur.com/or1ZUui)

You can read some of it at archive.org, or using [Google Books preview](https://www.google.com/books/edition/Stories_Essays_and_Poems/r8B8CgAAQBAJ?kptab=editions&gbpv=0). I don't have any idea which works in this collection would be most important to Aziraphale, although "The Sword of Wood" has a certain Crowleyesque air of mischief.

* * *

####  [Tales of the Long Bow](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/637362.Tales_of_the_Long_Bow) (12B #1)

[ ](https://imgur.com/v9AFGmq)

Darwen Finlayson reprint edition (1963). Originally published by Cassell & Co., 1925.

Four eccentric men who start doing goofy pranks, until "they find their buffoonery hemmed in more and more by official regulations, their pranks turn into a form of rebellion." I haven't read it yet.

Another Darwen Finlayson edition IDed by the image on the spine.

* * *

## Works about Chesterton:

####  [The Chestertons](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40661432-the-chestertons), by Mrs. Cecil Chesterton (G. K.'s brother's widow) (12F #3)

[ ](https://imgur.com/sSjMbMo)

Chapman & Hall (1941). 

There aren't very many copies of this book in American libraries; I haven't seen or read it. The only review I've found is on [goodreads](https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2438530142?book_show_action=true), which calls it "an entertaining, and ultimately very moving, account of the two Chesterton brothers".

Identified by searching abebooks for keyword "Chesterton" published by Chapman & Hall.

* * *

####  [G.K. Chesterton: A Biography](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3161826-g-k-chesterton), by Dudley Barker (12F #7, 12B #7) 

[ ](https://imgur.com/iILdVBV)  
[ ](https://imgur.com/ftLXx3T)

Constable (1973).

Why does Aziraphale have 2 copies of this biography, one with the dust jacket and one without? 

The [New York Times called it](https://www.nytimes.com/1973/09/01/archives/defender-of-the-faith-books-of-the-times-to-look-without-blinking.html) "a satisfying, readable, short life that is judicious in its appraisals and that neither blinks away nor makes any heroic, in‐depth studies."  
The review notes:

> Chesterton was a famous convert to Catholicism, but Mr. Barker reminds us that his significant conversion to orthodox Anglicanism came long before. The evience is not clear, but Chesterton seems to have undergone a spiritual crisis at 19 years of age, when he was in art school. A whiff of latent homosexuality, Barker thinks, a flirtation with diabolism, a sexual sadism: “The mad crimes he imagined,” Barker writes, “were those of sexual violence.”

And then, at the end of the review: "this fat, happy, bibulous, voluble Torquemada smiting error with his sword cane and putting on magic shows for little children"  
\--oh really? Our angel is the opposite of Torquemada and smites no-one (on purpose, at least), but otherwise ...

* * *

## 

Works not by or about Chesterton in the Chesterton Stacks

There are only two:

* * *

####  [Collected Verse](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8781456-collected-verse) by Hilaire Belloc (05, 12B) 

[ ](https://imgur.com/7yyv0YY)

[ ](https://imgur.com/bw3Y0D7)

Penguin Poets edition (#D44). 1958.

Belloc and Chesterton were such frequent collaborators that they had a pairing name, "Chesterbelloc" (coined by [George Bernard Shaw](http://web.archive.org/web/20060501113745/http://www.modjourn.brown.edu/mjp/Essays/Chesterb.html)), so this is only sort of not about Chesterton. It also has a rather snakey pattern on the cover, which I think Aziraphale would find fetching.

I haven't been able to find a table of contents.

####  [The Colour of Magic](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/601238.The_Colour_of_Magic) by Terry Pratchett

[ ](https://imgur.com/sz9ot4B)

First Edition, Colin Smythe (1983)

This is obviously one of Adam's additions to the bookshop, and definitely counts as Aziraphale "catching up on my reading." 

I hadn't re-read The Colour of Magic in decades, so I had to find it and read it again to try to imagine what Aziraphale would make of it, and why it might be toward the top of one of his piles of reading.

Is it the image of the gods playing games, with Fate squared up against Lady Luck? Is it something about Rincewind, the way he's a really terrible wizard because his mind is filled with a spell too powerful for his brain? Or is it just that Aziraphale likes the Luggage?

I remembered that I didn't really care for The Colour of Magic when I first read it circa 1985, and it took several years before we really got into Discworld. I now see that one reason for this is that this first Discworld book doesn't actually read like a Discworld book, the style is different. Pratchett hadn't yet found the narrative voice for the series, yet, so the humor is just satire, not [ha-ha-only-serious](http://catb.org/jargon/html/H/ha-ha-only-serious.html).

* * *

## 

Unidentified Works in Chesterton Stacks

#### Front Unknown 1 (12F #4) 

[ ](https://imgur.com/DPuKf4d)

Methuen. Original price was 2/6, which is low for a book of this thickness. Soft cover.

#### Front Unknown 2 (12F #8) 

[ ](https://imgur.com/funWXoS)

Hardcover, part of the Darwen Finlayson reprints of 1963. Only a little bit of the spine picture is visible, and I can't match it to what I've seen so far. (I IDed "The Ball and the Cross", "Tales of the Long Bow", and "The Poet and the Lunatics" in 12B on the basis of their spine illustrations in this series.)

#### Back Unknown 1 (12B #2) 

[ ](https://imgur.com/FtReLHN)

Methuen. Yellowish binding, no dust jacket. Medium thickness.

#### Back Unknown 2 (12B #5) 

[ ](https://imgur.com/kpFtOKT)

Hardcover, Darwen Finlayson. Front cover (no dust jacket) seems to be dark green. Could this be [The Return of Don Quixote](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/175847.The_Return_of_Don_Quixote)?  
(http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks09/0900401h.html)

#### Back Unknown 3 (12B #8) 

[ ](https://imgur.com/DilwqkG)

Dark gray or green hardcover.

It occurs to me that the pamphlet **Unknown5** [of the Unidentified Books List](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24121936/chapters/58336177) is at the very bottom of the Front Chesterton Stack, and so is *probably* Chestertonian in some way. This has not helped me identify it or read what's on it, though.

* * *

## 

My Thoughts About the Chesterton Binge

What first struck me about the Chesterton binge is what's _not_ in it. There is no [Father Brown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_Brown) and no [The Man Who Was Thursday](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Was_Thursday), though these are by far Chesterton's most popular works. Furthermore, Gaiman [has said](https://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/post/185661783606/hi-neil-in-an-effort-to-consume-good-omens-in-as) that " _The Man Who Was Thursday_ was somewhere in the back of our heads plotting Good Omens."

The works of Chesterton's fiction with readily-visible titles are the ones referenced in [this review](https://www.chesterton.org/lecture-59/) of _Four Faultless Felons_ : _Felons_ , plus _Manalive_ and _The Club of Queer Trades_. As the reviewer says, all these "mysteries" discover that the apparent criminal is no criminal at all, but is driven by motives at worst frivolous and at best shining with virtue. 

I think it's pretty obvious who Aziraphale might be thinking of, someone who's painted as a Bad Guy but who is in fact "a Good Person". You can decide whether Aziraphale is reading to reassure himself that Crowley is another "Faultless Felon", or if he's reading to craft arguments to persuade people (entities) of rigid, not to say orthodox, religious views that such a thing is possible. 

One element from the novel that made it into the script book but not into the filmed series is in Chapter Wednesday/Episode 2, where Crowley asks Aziraphale: "I suppose ... your people wouldn't consider giving me asylum?" and the angel replies, "I was going to ask you the same thing."

We can see why this didn't make it to the final cut. It definitely fits with the original Cold War metaphor, but it's completely incompatible with the characters as we see them in the series. I'd love to know how book!fandom dealt with this possibility.

Nonetheless, it's _barely possible_ that Aziraphale is reading these particular Chestertons to construct an argument for getting Crowley into Heaven, or at least for getting Heaven to not treat Crowley as a demonic enemy. It's similar to what Aziraphale does before Armageddon in [PeniG](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeniG/pseuds/PeniG)'s Akashic Records series, especially [Contingencies](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21525808). 

That's why Aziraphale isn't reading Father Brown stories. In those, the person on Heaven's side gives judgment, says who is evil and who is not. The closest character to Crowley in the Father Brown stories is [Flambeau](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flambeau_%28character%29), and that's a comparison that doesn't work for them--because Flambeau is "saved" by Father Brown, and Crowley doesn't want or need that kind of "saving", to join Heaven's side. The Chesterton Aziraphale is reading is about how Crowley doesn't need to be changed to be Good, he already is. 

As I said above, I think Aziraphale is re-reading _Orthodoxy_ because he knows that "everything has been saved from a wreck". It comforts him, to know that Chesterton had that feeling, too, and that it lead him toward God, not away. And of course thinking of the stars and Eden together makes him think of Crowley, and how he, too, is something infinitely precious that has been saved from the wreck. 

As for _The Man Who Was Thursday_ , I haven't re-read it in years but I think Aziraphale finds it rather appalling. It's so *cold*, so ... Heavenly. And God comes across as so self-satisfied and smug ... no, it's too much like Gabriel's version of Heaven, not the small, messy world with small, messy people that Aziraphale loves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG, I crawl with shame at how long this has taken. In explanation: it's 2020. But also: spouse's major surgery, parents' various things, 2020. Right now I'm protecting myself from thinking too much about the world by getting back into Lockdown, so I hope I can put up some other chapters without months of delay. Here's hoping!
> 
> The screencaps on this page were created by the talented [Fangirlishness](/users/Fangirlishness/profile).


End file.
